Suchitra Sebastian

Suchitra Sebastian is a condensed matter physicist at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. She is known for her discoveries of exotic quantum phenomena that emerge in complex materials. In particular, she is known for the discovery of unconventional insulating materials which display simultaneous conduction-like behaviour. In 2022 she was awarded the New Horizons in Physics Prize by the Breakthrough Foundation. She was named as one of thirty Exceptional Young Scientists by the World Economic Forum in 2013, one of The Next Big Names in Physics by the Financial Times in 2013, and spoke at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2016.

Biography Suchitra Sebastian obtained an undergraduate degree in physics from the Women's Christian College, Chennai. She attended the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where she received an MBA. She received a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University.

Sebastian is active in the arts, and performs in theatre. She is the founder director of the Cavendish Arts Science Programme at the University of Cambridge. She has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in plays including The Djinns of Eidgah. She co-founded Bread Theatre and Film Company with Ananya Mishra, with branches at the university of Cambridge and in London.

Career After her MBA degree, Sebastian worked as a management consultant for a few years. She then decided to pursue physics as a career, and joined Stanford University for a PhD.

Sebastian has also actively worked on the cuprates to determine why they behave as high temperature superconductors.

In 2015, Sebastian and her team used high magnetic fields to study samarium hexaboride, a Kondo insulator at low temperatures. Sebastian found that samarium hexaboride acts as a simultaneous conductor and insulator within its bulk, the first of a new class of unconventional insulators.

Awards (2007) Lee Osheroff Richardson North American Science prize (2012) Young Scientist Medal in Magnetism (International Union of Pure and Applied Physics) (2012) Moseley Medal (Institute of Physics) (2013) L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science (2015) Philip Leverhulme Prize (2015) Brian Pippard Prize (2022) Breakthrough Foundation New Horizons in Physics Prize

Selected works Popular exposition

Technical articles